Originally Posted by 2257-Ben

He said that so that people would not run out and buy gas and create shortages in the short term that would drive prices up. You can bet your ass that the oil companies are not going to allow prices to come down after they have gone up to $3 or $3.50 a gallon. If everyone just runs right out and buys gas and causes all of the stations to run out of fuel, the remaining stations that have gas will raise their prices due to the economic laws of supply and demand. The higher the demand and the lower the supply, the more 'valuable' the commodity.